


The [R]emaining Hope

by Fennical



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Rating will go up, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Romance, human reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:51:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fennical/pseuds/Fennical
Summary: She awakens to a world she knows so much about and yet also so little. The passage of time during her cryogenic sleep altering the land she once knew so well into a desolate wasteland controlled by machines. Now lost and alone, the last human on earth must find a way to survive. With the help of her android companions, this impossible task might just be achievable. As they teach her the current state of the world she in turn teaches them about the past and what it really means to be human.As war continues to wage she can't stand to see the suffering continue. She may just live long enough to bring about a solution to this everlasting war... or she'll die trying.[9S / Human!Female!Reader]





	The [R]emaining Hope

“En- ...gy Ma- ...tion”

I startled awake, my head immediately swimming with nausea as I slowly drifted the fine line between consciousness and sleep. God why was someone shouting at this hour? I tried to ignore the noise and fall back into the dream I had been stirred from. I barely began to nod off before the loud voice made an appearance once again.

“...eat ...ergy mal- ...ion”

All I wanted to do was go back to sleep but I knew it would be impossible with all the commotion going on. Even though I was committed to getting up, I didn’t attempt to open my eyes just yet, the nausea I was experiencing warning me to lay still for a moment longer to let my stomach settle.

I almost let out a yawn, still tired from my awakening, but I stopped the action just in the nick of time, afraid that I’d retch the moment I opened my mouth. Just what did I eat last night that made me feel so sick?

“Overri- ...ock mech-”

God there it was again… Who decides to start the morning by shouting for all to hear? It was getting just plain annoying at this point.

In the meantime of waiting for my nausea to pass, I took a moment to take a few deep breaths and focus on whatever that voice was saying. I could barely make out a full word as I was now. Whatever voice was calling out sounded so distant and muddled, almost as if there was cotton in my ears. Whatever happened last night didn’t just mess up my stomach but everything else as well I guess.

Now whose voice was that? It was hard to tell from how muffled it was. Were my parents calling for me?

The more I thought about it the more my mind awoke from the hazy fog of sleep and I began to remember. No, that wasn’t their voice. I no longer lived with my parents, it couldn’t have been them. 

Then was it my roommate calling for me? Or maybe a friend of theirs? That would explain why I didn’t recognize the voice immediately. Still… why didn’t they just open the door? I feel too sick to go open it myself and I’ve always made it a point for others to just come in if I was really needed.

“Re- ...sing al- ...forms”

Putting aside the question of ‘who’ I decided to focus on the ‘what.’ I strained my muffled hearing to make out the words they were saying, but instead noticed another noise. It sounded almost like hissing or as if gas was being released. Was there a gas line break? Is that why they were calling for me?

I tried to sit up and open my eyes, ignoring the feeling in my stomach and focusing on the sudden panic I felt, but instead of movement I felt resistance. My eyes wouldn’t open, my body wouldn't move, I tried to call out for help but not even a sound would leave my lips.

What was going on? My panic was rising. Why did my body feel so heavy? I needed to get up, I needed to see what was going on, I needed to get out of here before my place blew up!

My heart was racing and every fiber of my being was screaming to just move already! The hissing noise was getting louder by the second but as it increased in volume I could also feel my fingers beginning to twitch in response. Slowly but surely I was regaining the ability to move.

I continued to struggle, my body only twitched slightly in various places despite trying to will it to jump out of bed. Only a few minutes passed by yet it felt like hours before I was finally able to get some sort of control over my arms. I lifted my hand up to my face as quickly as I could, clumsily wiping my eyes in order to prompt them to open.

Slowly, I was able to do just that but it took me a good minute and some rapid blinking to actually see what was going on. As my eyes finally adjusted to the bright lights shining around me I could finally make out my surroundings.

This was not my bedroom. I’ve never seen this place before. I was in some sort of… container? It was cylindrical, and only marginally long and wide enough to fit my body with a little elbow room to move. The rounded walls were all a stark white that seemed all the brighter thanks to various radiant lights embedded in the walls near the top of the container. It was almost blinding to look at even though my eyes had already adjusted. But the part that caught my attention the most was a frosted over window situated at eye level right in front of me.

As it was now there was no way I could see clearly out of this thing. But why was it covered in frost? Was it that cold outside the container I was in? My arms moved sluggishly forward as I reached out to feel along the glass. My eyebrows shot up in surprise upon noticing that the frost was on my side of the glass. That didn’t make any sense though… why would the frost be on my side? I mean I didn’t feel cold in here, it was just... comfortable. But then again I hadn't even regained control over all my body anyways yet. Hell, other than my arms all the rest of my body was fully numb, so maybe I just couldn’t feel it.

Still, that raises the question of why it would be cold enough in here to cause frost to form in the first place. A sudden wave of both nausea and pain hit me all at once with that thought. I collapsed forward from it, only now releasing that I had been standing this entire time. I had assumed I was laying down but seeing as gravity took me to the floor, that didn't seem to be the case. Apparently I had been sleeping while standing upwards? But why was I-

Another jolt of pain hit. It felt like a hundred hammers were all bashing into my skull at the same time. I could barely pull in a breath as I rode out the sensation. God it hurt too much to try to think, now wasn’t the time for it, I needed to just move. At least the pain seemed to kickstart my body back into action.

As I went to stand back up I noticed a small indent below and to the left of the window. Everything was so blindingly white that if I hadn’t fallen I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. Sliding my hand into the indent I could feel not only a small lever handle of sorts but also a stream of air coming in.

So the hissing noise was just air coming in? I shook my head, deciding to stop wondering so much, I had to keep going. Putting as much force as my body would currently allow, I twisted the handle with all I could. It didn't take much thankfully for as soon as I put the slightest bit of pressure on the handle the door flung open.

Yes! I did it! I got out! A brief moment of victory crossed my mind... before I realized I couldn’t keep my balance and tumbled out of the container, falling onto the hard concrete. It was only less than a foot drop but my body was still to slow to brace itself.

I winced upon impact, “Ouch! Oh god, where the hell-” I tried to complain out of impulse but my throat was dry and my voice was hoarse from lack of use so all my words came out rough and broken. I quickly quieted though when I heard something begin to speak over me.

“Energy malfunction, repeat, energy malfunction. Overriding all pod lock mechanisms. Releasing all stable lifeforms.”

I looked around, the voice sounded computerized and inhuman. Was this what I was hearing before? Every couple of seconds the message started back up again. It seemed to be coming from the various speakers lining the upper corners of the room I now found myself in.

Looking around I could see there were dozens of egg-looking containers, just like the one I emerged from, lining the walls of the room. I stood back up on wobbly legs and took in more of the surroundings. I was in some sort of large, fully concrete room. There were various mechanical devices hooked up to the containers, which I assumed were what was keeping them running. On one of the walls furthest from me there stood a large metal door, egg-like vessels lining either side of the door frame in order to fit as many containers into the room as possible.

I still couldn’t remember what was going on or why I was here but I didn’t have time to question that, I was to busy worrying about why I was the only one in the room. Didn’t all the other closed egg-things hold other people too? Why was no one else coming out?

I turned to walk over to the container placed next to mine, trying to see if I could somehow open it to release whoever was in it. “Come on… Where’s the stupid handle?” I wondered out loud as I felt along the exterior of the container. “Don’t tell me it’s only on the inside?!” I practically shouted as I came up empty in my findings. There had to be a way to manually open these things. It would be a stupid design flaw not to have one. Maybe the machines hooked up to the containers had a release button?

I stepped to the side to look at the panel of buttons that adorned the contraption connected to the egg-like containers. There weren’t any labels and there had to have been over thirty different buttons. I shook my head in frustration as I stared unknowingly at it, completely at a loss of what to do. If I just pushed the buttons at random I could potentially kill whoever was inside there! Where were the people who ran this place? If I could find one of them then surely they would know how to get this open.

It was then that I heard a sudden new noise coming from my container. The hissing sound began to start up again. I quickly looked over to see that it had begun to automatically close itself back up.

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute there!” I yelled and ran over to grab the door. “What do you think you're doing! Stop! Please!” As silly as it was to be shouting at a big metal egg, I couldn’t help the sense of dread I got from seeing it close. I had been sleeping in there, it was safe, nothing had bothered me, I didn’t feel alone or scared in there unlike how I felt in this strange new room. To see the container close, therefore cutting off any safe hiding place I had, it was terrifying. I wouldn’t have anywhere to go back to if it closed. I tried desperately to keep it open. However, no matter how hard I tugged I wasn’t nearly strong enough to keep it open and it promptly sealed itself back up again.

“Energy malfunction. All stable lifeforms have been released. Facility lock down rescinded. Commence facility evacuation, repeat, commence facility evacuation.” Almost as soon as the container sealed itself the speakers come to life again, now repeating a new line. In tandem with the new message, the main door to the room made an unlocking sound and slowly slide open.

I froze in place. “... All stable lifeforms have been released,” I repeated back slowly after a moment. As if to taunt me, the same message played again.

“Energy malfunction. All stable lifeforms have been released. Facility lock down rescinded. Commence facility evacuation, repeat, commence facility evacuation.”

It only took another second for the meaning of that to set in. “Nonono please that- that can’t be right...” I could feel tears gathering in my eyes as I spun to look at the dozens of other people stuck in their containers. They couldn’t all be- I can’t be the only one... There was no way I was stuck down here all alone! That was impossible, it just couldn’t be true… This sort of thing only happened in movies and storybooks, never in real life.

Panic began to rise in the pit of my stomach once again. That’s when I come to a realization. That door just opened! Maybe there were more rooms full of people who had already emerged from their containers too. If I was still here then there had to be someone who made it out too. 

There had to be. I just had to find them! Maybe they were as lost and afraid as I was.

Holding onto that hope I tried to wipe away the evidence of the tears that stained my face and went over to the door. I stopped for a moment before exiting, taking a second to look back at the containers that would never open. I closed my eyes, feeling tears well up and threaten to overflow once again. I just hoped that they were able to pass peacefully in their sleep, I didn’t want to imagine any other death they could have experienced. A death that I could have experienced too had I not been one of the lucky ones. Wiping at my eyes once more, I left the room.

The door led to a common area of sorts. It was a huge hexagon room, fully concrete from floor to ceiling just like the other room was. There were large old dust covered couches and metal tables that were covered in rust lined about the room. Various other pieces of furniture and technology were scattered about to try and simulate a massive living room. On five of the six walls of the room, there were doors similar looking to the one I stepped out of. I assumed there were more people stashed away in those rooms but I’d have to check them all to make certain.

On the remaining wall of the room was a large staircase that led upwards. I walked over to the first step of it and looked up, it seemed to go on for such a long time… Was I underground? That seemed like the only logical explanation for having a staircase that long. I tried to remember but with everything that had happened so far it was a struggle to calm down and think clearly. After a few moments I gave up, being alone and scared in somewhere I had no recollection of wasn’t going to help me figure out anything. If I wanted answers I needed to find someone to talk to or I needed to see something to jog my memory, standing around would get me neither of those things.

Stepping towards the nearest room, it had only taken a few minutes to work up the courage to go past the door but once I had entered, there wasn’t much to find. I tried calling out and looking everywhere but there was no one in the first room I checked. The layout was exactly the same as the one I had woken up in and the same message was playing over the speaker system. All the white containers were closed and no one seemed to be in here.

An overwhelming sense of dread began to rise in my chest. My knees began to shake from fear and uncertainty but I couldn't falter now. I still had three other rooms to check. I needed to keep going, for whoever was left and for my own sanity, I had to continue on. 

\-------------------------------

Every room was the same.

Concrete walls, egg-like containers, blaring speakers, no other living people.

Everyone was dead.

Everyone but me.

I was the only survivor.

I was all alone...

I collapsed in the common room, curling up in a corner as grief practically radiated off of my very being. So many lives were cut short; mothers, fathers, children, they all had been robbed of their life.

Were my parents in any of those containers?

What about my friends?

Was anyone I loved and cared for even still alive?

Why was I the only one?

Why couldn’t I have gone with them?

Why was I left all alone?

Sobs racked my body as the reality of what was all around me came crashing down on me. I felt so alone, so terrified. I still didn’t know why I was here or what was going on. If I went up those stairs would I just find more containers forever sealed? I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it if I saw even just one more, my heart just wouldn’t be able to take it, my mind wouldn’t be able to take it. What if I walked past one of the containers and saw the face of someone I knew? Tears flowed freely down my face as I gripped my knees as close to my chest as I could.

“Energy malfunction. All stable lifeforms have been released. Facility lock down rescinded. Commence facility evacuation, repeat, commence facility evacuation.” Over and over the speakers repeated the same line. It did nothing to calm me if anything it made me cry that much harder at the constant reminder that I was the only one left.

Time seemed to pass in a blur as I sobbed. I didn’t know if I had been crying for minutes or hours but no matter how much time passed, the intensity of my grief wouldn’t waver.

The volume of my own cries mixing with the blaring of the speakers drowned out all other sounds to my ears. Even that of two pairs of footsteps quickly descending the staircase, headed towards the source of all the commotion.

**Author's Note:**

> So... this is the first ever story I've posted on here. Hope it isn't to bad so far! This first chapter is a lot shorter than I usually do so expect lengthier chapters in the future!
> 
> Comments and Kudos motivate me to write longer chapters and get them out faster to you~
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own nier automata, any of the characters in nier automata, or the reader!


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